The man, a 46-year-old who gave his name as Tsuyoshi Koizumi, went to the police department in the Kasumigaseki district at around 9:35 p.m. Saturday with blood-stained knives and was questioned in a police station in Chiyoda Ward.
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The 46-year-old suspect is transferred to Tokyo's metropolitan police after he turned himself in to police late Saturday, saying he had killed the retired vice health minister, found dead with his wife who was also killed in the attack, in Tokyo early Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008. Japanese police arrested the man for weapons possession early Sunday morning after he confessed to the killing in a high-profile crime that authorities believe is linked to the loss of millions of pension records. (Xinhua/AFP Photo) |
The police arrested him on suspicion of violating the Swords and Firearms Control Law and will investigate whether he was linked to murder and stabbing incidents involving former vice health and welfare ministers.
He told the police that he had previously worked as a parcel delivery man and has been switching jobs frequently.
"I was hacked off because my pet was killed by a healthcare center in the past," local media reports quoted the man as saying.
In Saitama City, north of Tokyo, on Tuesday morning, former vice health minister Takehiko Yamaguchi, 66, and his wife Michiko, 61, were found dead with stab wounds to their chests at their home. They are believed to have been murdered Monday.
Later on Tuesday, in Tokyo's Nakano Ward, Yasuko Yoshihara, 72,the wife of Kenji Yoshihara, 76, who was also a vice health and welfare minister, was stabbed at the entrance of their home by a man pretending to be from a parcel delivery service. The wife suffered serious wounds while Yoshihara was not at home at the time.
Police believe the serial attacks were deliberately targeted at former vice health ministers and suspected the murder was the same person.
The attacks are suspected to be linked to resentment over the country's pension fiasco which erupted last year, because both Yamaguchi and Yoshihara had served as heads of the former Health and Welfare Ministry's Pension Bureau and also as vice health and welfare ministers.
